"This historic era shows how far we've come on safety, but the statistics also bear a warning that we can't let up in our work to build safer streets," said Sadik-Khan in a press release. "Too many crashes that take lives on our streets are still all too avoidable and we need to do even more to prevent speeding, drunken driving and simple failure to pay attention."

The New York Times reported that in the last two years, the city had the lowest number of traffic deaths since it began keeping records about a century ago. The city reported 269 traffic deaths in 2010, a 5 percent increase from the previous year, but still among the lowest in the nation.

New York still falls behind some international cities in traffic safety. The Department of Transportation said that London, Paris and Tokyo had even lower traffic fatality rates than New York City.

Councilman James Vacca, chair of the city's Transportation Committee, said more efforts are still needed to combat traffic fatalities. "Although New York City is so safe, I do think we have to aim to make it even safer. We do lag behind some other major cities around the world."